Max's 2nd Birthday

Max turned two on January 14th and we decided to celebrate by doing some of Max's favorite things.  We started off the day at the Children's Museum.  Right now the museum has an exhibit called The Big Backyard, which is a whole bunch of outdoor activities, like canoeing and bike riding, all re-imagined and recreated for an indoor space.  Max spent a few hours playing upstairs on the various pieces of equipment.  His favorite that day was Gordy the Elephant, a slide in the shape on an elephant.

We then visit

ed the Super Gravitron; it is as cool as it sounds.  This part of the museum uses pneumatic, hydraulic, and mechanical devices to move balls through clear pipes around the room.  After a lot of balls have been collected into a central container, they drop from the ceiling and the kids run like crazy in order to collect the balls.  Max is absolutely fascinated by this room.  He loves to chase the balls around and then find different entry points for the balls and watch them as they traverse the different pathways.  

After that, we went to the Imagination Playground so Max could play on the farmhouse.  While the house does have a kitchen and many things for imaginative play, Max prefers to run up the steps to the 2nd story and then run down the ramp on the other side at full speed.  The kid has absolutely no fear.

After the museum, we had pizza for lunch since that is Max's absolute favorite food.  Nap time followed lunch.  During naptime I worked on Max cake.  The actual cake turned into something of a disaster(the cake stuck to the pan and was just beyond saving) so I improvised and made cupcakes with train decor instead of a Thomas the Train cake.  Last year I had a similar cake crisis but instead of being creative I started crying hysterically.  I think my reaction this year was much better.  Yay for personal growth and improvement!  In case you are wondering, I made banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting which was drizzled with dark chocolate frosting.  Since I have Celiac Disease, I couldn't actually taste the cake but Carl told me it was tasty.  In addition to the ruined cake and two dozen cupcakes, I made a gluten-free chocolate cake for myself and my friend, Karen, who also has Celiac Disease.  That cake was super rich but it was still pretty good.

That night we had a birthday party at the Saxton's house.  As it turned out, two of the Saxton's kids had birthdays the same week as Max so we decided to have one big fiesta instead of 3 little ones.  Since Max loves Elyse, the Saxton's oldest daughter, it sounded like the perfect plan to me.  Max really enjoyed playing with all the kids and eating cupcakes for dinner.  All in all, it was a pretty sweet day.